Austin agreed and took a step away from the door, turning around so he was facing the right direction down the alleyway again. As he did, his rucksack caught on one of the metal bins, shoving it sideways. The metal lid clattered closed.
Both men froze as the sound echoed through the alleyway, the high brick walls making it echo for what seemed like a lifetime. They looked at one another in horror. The conversation inside the chicken shop had ceased. They held their breath, waiting to see what would happen next.
Chapter 13
Returning home after one of the longest working days of her adult life, Jessie slumped down on the couch and immediately closed her eyes. She was granted about twenty-five seconds of peace and quiet before the boys realized she was home and bounded into the room, jumping on her and abruptly bringing to a halt any chance of relaxation she had.
“Mommy! We learned what to do on a farm today, mommy. They showed us where milk comes from!”
“It was gross. You had to squeeze the cows’ boobs and then it squirted everywhere!”
“They’re called udders, Axel, don’t you remember?”
“Whatever,” Axel groaned at his older brother. “It was still yucky.”
Jessie forced her eyes open and pushed a smile onto her face, determined not to let her exhaustion show and ruin the limited time she now had with her children. They were only three days into the new regime that the leadership council had put in place and already things were more different and intense than she could have imagined. Jessie knew the council was doing everything they could to keep island life going as regularly as possible, but she was drained and depleted, wanting nothing more than to climb into a hot bath and soak for hours with a glass of white wine. It was a fantasy far out of her reach, especially with the rationing of supplies and limited hot water allowances now in place.
The leadership council had changed a lot of things on Kauai, most of them for the better, though Jessie wasn’t happy with her new job. Having been deemed a non-essential worker, she was tasked with looking after the islands food supply and ensuring that each household was pooling their supplies fairly. It meant that Jessie went from door to door acting like a repo man during the day, sharing the ration list with each household in her assigned district and then taking any extra that people had.
She didn’t disagree with the job itself, aware that it made perfect sense for each family to have an equal share of food and other necessities. There was no point one person hoarding all of one item and leaving everyone else struggling to find it. However, it was hard work. Not everyone was happy to give up what they had, especially if they had spent good money on it before the crash. That meant a large chunk of her day was spent arguing with other people and already it had resulted in some of the newfound security force having to be involved.
“Did you manage to make some milk then? What else did you learn?” she exclaimed to her two boys, trying to ignore the fatigue she was feeling and entertain her little ones at least for a short period of time. Arthur was still out working with his engineering team, her husband practicing even longer hours now than he had done before Trident’s collapse.
As Zayn and Axel talked over one another to share details of their day, Jessie forced herself to smile and remain positive for her children. Thankfully due to the school structure that Martha and Kat, another woman from the leadership council, had put in place, the boys managed to maintain a pretty rigid routine that didn’t differ too much from before.
Children on the island were divided up into three age groups now, the first being those too young to be put into any practical situation. Those children mainly spent their time in large supervised play, building sandcastles or doing paint by numbers.
The second group was made up of children who were still too young to be given any proper responsibility, but were old enough that they needed to have structure in their day. As a result, they were shown how to do basic tasks like milking cows or hunting for chicken eggs, as well as maintaining their regular school lessons and daily activities.
Those old enough to be given responsibilities split their time between watching over the youngest ones and learning trades from adults around the island, preparing them to help and utilizing their individual strengths. By dividing up the children like this, it allowed for a greater division of labor while also keeping some form of schooling and regulation in check.
Zayn and Axel both fell into the middle group.
It was a structure that worked well under Martha’s supervision, her place on the leadership council and her ideas a hit with almost everyone left on Kauai. It was one of the first things that the council had put in place, alongside organizing a team of engineers that Arthur was a part of to try and keep the electrical grid up and running as long as possible.
New rules had been put in place involving the restriction of power at certain times of the day. That included only running hot water between six and seven in the morning and between seven and eight at night. Art and the others were working extremely hard, but without the complete set up, it was hard to keep the island fully supported, even with its considerably reduced population.
Looking up at the clock on
